Chapter 14 #2
He shrugged a muscle-rounded shoulder and walked closer. “I needed you alive then, but I planned to come back and end you. You were quicker to act than I anticipated.” He was so close now that if I reached out, I could touch him. I curled my hands into fists. “Where are the civilians?” he asked.
“Like I’d tell you that.”
He exhaled softly, his gaze darkening. Boring into me. “I could delve into your mind and find out.”
A spark of panic burst in my chest, but I quickly staunched it with logic and truth. If he had the power to read my mind, to truly see what I knew, then he wouldn’t be messing around. He’d just…do it.
I shrugged. “Go on then?”
His jaw flexed.
“I’m waiting.” I arched a brow as his topaz eyes flinched. “You can’t, can you? Because if you could have, you wouldn’t have needed to send ankh to spy for you, and you wouldn’t be wasting my time here either.”
He moved fast, his hand going to my throat, his lips so close that for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me. My mind revolted even as my body leaned into him.
His mouth curved cruelly. “You remember my touch. How I felt deep inside you. Do you want that feeling again, Leela? If I give it to you, will you tell me where you are and allow me to slit your pretty throat?”
My pulse beat like a trapped bird beneath his thumb as his words conjured images I’d much rather forget. “Let go of me.”
He leaned in, lips coasting over mine, and I was thrown back to the dream of the other night—him deep inside me, his hands on my hips, gripping hard as he fucked me. My pussy throbbed at the memory, and bile stung my throat, but I’d be damned if I let him see how he was affecting me.
“Yes…there it is,” he whispered against my mouth. “Your arousal is written all over your face.”
I twisted, looking away, and caught sight of a figure by the pillars behind us.
Araz.
Dressed in a loose white tunic and dark pants, his dark hair twisted in a knot, topaz eyes bright with shock, it was him. The real him. His appearance landed like a fist to the gut.
A golden light bloomed at his chest, and the air shimmered outward from it, coalescing into a gold rope that floated toward me, already connected to me. But there was another thread coming off it. A crimson one reaching for the primordial evil.
Araz’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. He was about to attack. To show himself to the primordial evil. Bad. That was bad. I couldn’t allow him to be seen.
The primordial evil tensed, his head beginning to turn.
“No!” I grabbed his face and crushed my mouth to his, hoping that Araz would heed my warning.
A low, keening sound hit me straight in the solar plexus. Araz’s pain. My eyes heated, but I held fast, my mouth against the evil bastard’s lips.
Please go, Araz. Please be safe.
I cracked an eye to check. The golden threads pulsed as if carrying the message, and Araz’s fists clenched tight.
Go…please. A sob formed in my throat. A wave of emotion I couldn’t vent. The golden thread pulsed again, as if venting it for me. I felt his answer deep in my chest. A promise to return. To survive. To come back to me.
I hear you. I fucking hear you.
He inclined his head and stepped back into shadow.
The fist around my heart squeezed, and I made to pull away from the primordial evil, but his grip on me tightened. His mouth parted against mine, tongue laving my lips to gain entry.
A hot pulse of desire rocked through me, the telltale clench low down shocking me.
I tore free, my chest heaving as an insane possibility rose in my mind. “You want me…”
“What?” His voice was gruff. His topaz eyes dazed.
Oh gods. I was right.
He stood tall, his face smoothing out like stone, and my heart lurched because I was certain I’d hit the nail on the head.
The evil fucker wanted me.
He grabbed my throat again, squeezing hard enough to make my eyes water.
“I can’t kill you here, but I can make you wish you were dead. Over and over. I can hurt your mind even as your body lies safe, wherever it is.”
“Then…do…it. Better than…fucking you.”
He released me abruptly, shoving me away from him. I stumbled and went down on my ass, and he advanced, falling gracefully into a crouch in front of me. He tipped his head to the side, a thin smile on his lips.
“You’re right, Leela. I do want you. I want to find you and watch the light in your eyes die. That is my vow.”
I didn’t understand his obsession with me, and I didn’t care to. “No need to find me. I’ll come to you. And the day that I do will be your last day in that body.” I stood slowly. “Now get the fuck out of my dream!”
He reached for me, but a billowing mist rose to swallow him.
I was ready to wake up.
“Leela, you were whimpering in your sleep,” Pashim said when I opened my eyes.
“Bad dream.” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.” I snuggled into him. “It’s over now.”
I tried to settle, to slip back into sleep, but my brain was too wired, running over the dream and…wait. I’d seen Nani in my dream before the primordial evil pulled me away. She’d been young and…A possibility occurred to me, one that I should have considered sooner.
“Pashim?”
“Hmmm?”
“I dreamed of Nani. She was in a bar. She was young…”
He tensed slightly, and the air rushed out of my lungs. “You saw her, didn’t you?” I peered up at his face, seeing my suspicions confirmed. “She was wherever you were.”
He exhaled. “Yes, we saw her. I meant to tell you.”
“You left her there?”
“She’s safe there, Leela. Priti will take her to the proper afterlife when it’s time.”
Nani was safe. She’d looked happy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I planned to, but I walked into a nagrata attack, and after that your friends were defensive and…I’m sorry. It slipped my mind. I would have remembered, though. I would have told you.”
I believed him.
His brows pinched. “You said you had a bad dream…”
“I did…after.” But I still didn’t want to talk about it. “I think I can sleep now.”
His arm tightened around me, and I closed my eyes. Nani was safe. Pashim was here, and the primordial evil couldn’t hurt or control me in my dreams.
Dreams were my domain.
I’d somehow managed to connect to Araz too, which meant there was a way to reach him if I tried. A bud of hope unfurled inside me.
Next time I dreamed I’d find the golden thread and pull…
Next time the primordial evil wouldn’t get a chance to come between us.